Talk:List of mountain warfare forces

Italian Army naming conventions

I am not inclined to discuss Italian Army naming conventions when someone translates "Alpine" and "Alpini" as Alpine... these two words mean different things (one is a adjective the other a infantry specialty name = a nominativ). Battaglione Bersaglieri = Bersaglieri Battalion, Battaglione Alpini = Alpini Battalion. All other translations are wrong. ​And "Artiglieria Terrestre" is Field Artillery in English, "Demolition Engineers" don't exist in English, it's either Sappers or Engineers. The Raggruppamento Addestrativo "Aosta" doesn't exist since 2016. Today we have the "Reggimento Addestrativo", which commands the "Battaglione Addestrativo "Aosta", also in Italian Army terminology "Gruppo" = Group, Raggruppamento = Grouping or Groupment. "Comando Divisione "Tridentina" is not translated as "Divisional Command "Tridentina", "Divisione "Tridentina" is the unit's name and stays as "Division "Tridentina"" together. And never translate "Folgore". That is just not done - never ever. Unit honor names aren't translated into English. I.e. it's Regiment "Savoia Cavalleria" (3rd) and not "Regiment "Savoy Cavalry" (3rd). And "Paracadutisti" are Paratroopers and are not translated as "Parachute"... I could go on, but don't feel like debating such erroneous translations. noclador (talk) 21:29, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

List of mountain warfare forces

Copied from my talkpage to consolidate the discussion on this page:

Dear friend Noclador, could you please explain the reason of your edits to the Article List of mountain warfare forces? It's almost *two years* that I'm working on that page, and it have its own consolidated and definitive style, as follows:

• The unit names are translated as literally *as possible* in english, and a full original version of the unit name is provided as well. So, for example, Alpini (Italian) is rendered in english as "Alpine", while the german "Jaeger" or the french "Chasseurs" as "light infantry" could not be rendered as "Hunters" (that is meaningless in english) so "Light Infantry" is used instead (i.e. the correct english functional translation). There is no sense in using a mixed english/original language unit name as "Alpini Battalion": it will not help an english-language user to understand the unit name, and it will not add anything to the article as the full original language unit name is already provided.
• There is no sense in putting headers in boldface (Italian Army instead of "Army"): the current headers are not wrong in any way, and "if it's not broken, do not fix it".
• Only units that are *mountain trained" are included. So for example the artillery of the Polish 21st Brigade had intentionally not been included, as it is a mechanized unit without mountain training or equipment.

So please, let's talk about this matter *before* any further edit, and let's find a solution in the most friendly and cooperative way. All the best --Arturolorioli (talk) 08:33, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

To answer your comments:

1. Alpino/Alpini is a noun! You translate it as if it were an adjective. You also don't translate Bersaglieri. And you do not translate honor names - there is a reason names are in "". I.e. "Monte Cervino" remains "Monte Cervino" in English. No translation needed and if you translate it as "Mount Cervino" you're inventing stuff, as that mountain is known in English by its Swiss-German name: Matterhorn. Your translations are often wrong and almost always not necessary. Also by going for a "functional translation" you overstep what we as wikipedia editors can do - "functional" is your POV as what this unit is doing, while we should translate unit names in a way to follow the naming conventions of the various military organizations. There are articles for Alpini, Vânători de munte, Gebirgsjäger, Chasseurs Alpins - so for a reader there is no need to translate these terms as there are articles explaining the meaning in detail. I would put an sentence like "The Italian Army's mountain units are the Alpini." at the beginning of a listing and then leave the various names as is (= no translating).
2. Ok.
3. "mountain trained" - that is a slippery slope. I.e. The two Podhale Rifles battalions and the 22nd Carpathian Mountains Infantry Battalion are part of the Polish Armed Forces Mechanized Forces. They are carrying on the traditions of the Podhale Rifles, but their combat focus is on mechanized warfare. I.e. the 1st Battalion is equipped with BWP-1 tracked IFVs, the 5th with Rosomak wheeled IFVs, and the 22nd again with BWP-1.

best regards, noclador (talk) 09:59, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Dear Friend Noclador:

• The exact unit name in his original language is provided for every unit, including a phonetic transcription for non-latin alphabets. That's the *only* exact unit name but, quite obviously, most of them are meaningless for the average english-language user. As this is the english-language version of Wikipedia, a translation of the unit name in english is mandatory.
• There are two way to provide a translation, that is a functional one or an as-close-as-literal one:
  • In a functional translation, the french "Régiment de Chasseurs Parachutistes" is quite simply "Paratrooper Regiment": no matter what's the exact literal meaning of the words used, that's the way the French call their army paratroopers. This translation is less informative about the meaning of the unit name, but it can do.
  • In a as-close-as-literal translation, the same term could be rendered as "Parachute Light Infantry Regiment", as the perfect literal translation of "Chasseur" (Hunter) is meaningless as a military term in english and "Chasseurs" is the french military term to indicate a "Light" unit. This translation is more informative about the exact meaning of the unit name in its own original language, and that's why I chose this option two years ago, when I started working on this pages. IMHO the more informative the context is, the better, even if in some cases it produces a rather clumsy, unfamiliarly sounding unit name (see as an example the turkish "Amfibi Deniz Piyade Taburu", that literally translate in an apparently pleonastic "Amphibious Marine Infantry Battalion").
• Ditto for the unit honorific titles. The *only* exact, original unit title is the one provided in the original language name of the unit. But what's a "Nembo", or a "Chernomorski Akuli", or a "Barreteros de Cuyo"? Of course a translation in english of an unit honorific title can look markedly odd to a native-speaker of that language, that is used to refer to that unit by its exact name, but, again, it does provide an useful and relevant informative content for an english-speaker user, who otherwise wouldn't have a clue of the meaning and that have anyway access to the original, "exact" honorific title in the immediately following original language version of the unit name.

For the above mentioned reasons I'm fully convinced that the current as-literal-as-possible translation system coupled with the exact original-language version of the unit name is the better way to provide the most informative contents to the users (that's one of Wikipedia top priorities) while still guaranteeing exact and documented contents (that's another top priority). Any mixed-language hybrid system (like "Parachute Chasseur Regiment") does not provide the necessary informative part of the translation process guaranteed by the as-literal-as-possible approach neither provide a functional style translation: it just leave a part of the unit name untranslated, and that's obviously no translation at all.
That said, of course nothing is engraved in stone: as-literal-as-possible translations can (and must!) be improved if and when necessary, or we can switch to a purely functional translation style, or whatever: just please let's *talk* in friendly and cooperative terms about the matter about the best way we can provide *a service* to the other users, and then reach a common point of view, *before* starting blanket editing without discussion. I'm absolutely confident that we can easily reach a shared decision. All the best. --Arturolorioli (talk) 12:24, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Alpini, Chasseurs, Cazadores de Montaña, Gebirgsjäger, Vânători de munte, etc. aren't just functional titles you can translate. They are corps, specialities, etc. of an Army / Infantry Corps. And when you translate the noun "Alpini" as the adjective "Alpine" you do not properly render the original name in English. You invent a new name that is unrelated to the original name. To give you an idea of a correct translation:

• 1^er Régiment de Chasseurs Parachutistes -> numeral + unit size + corps / speciality + function => 1st Chasseurs Paratroopers Regiment
• 4° Reggimento Alpini Paracadutisti -> numeral + unit size + corps / speciality + function => 4th Alpini Paratroopers Regiment
• Regimiento de Infantería "Galicia" n.º 64 de Cazadores de Montaña -> unit size + function + "honorific title" + numeral + corps / speciality => Cazadores de Montaña Infantry Regiment "Galicia" No. 64 (or: Infantry Regiment "Galicia" No. 64 of Cazadores de Montaña)

When translating unit names you have to preserve the military and traditional information contained within the units name and that information is lost if you i.e. translate "Chasseurs" as "Light Infantry". There is a whole bunch of traditions associated with "Chasseurs", "Alpini", or the British "Rifles" etc. etc. From distinct uniforms, to distinct head gear, to distinct marches, etc. That is why we have i.e. Alpini, Bersaglieri, Podhale Rifles etc. articles. You can't omit this info, by doing a translation. What you could do is to put a sentence at the start of each country like this: "The Italian mountain warfare forces are the Alpini. Originally a speciality of the army's infantry corps, they include today other formations." or "The French mountain warfare forces are the Chasseurs Alpins. Originally a speciality of the Chasseurs a Pied corps of the army's infantry, they include today other formations." This way you can leave the original names in the unit titles, and a reader can read about the history of the speciality in detail and you preserve the corps / speciality association in the unit's title.

As for the unit names - again you have to preserve the name in English. I.e. the 183rd Paratroopers Regiment "Nembo" (183º Reggimento Paracadutisti "Nembo") needs to retain the name "Nembo" - if you want to provide more information then you can do a translation of the Nembo as Nimbostratus cloud after the original unit's name. You can't just translate the honor name. The Folgore is the Folgore in any language. Col Moschin is known in military circles of NATO as Col Moschin. It's like a name: Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't become Christian Ronald in the English wiki. You can put a explanatory text after the original name, like i.e: "Folgore" (English: Lighting).

Ultimately the goal must be that a unit's name preserves the meaning, associations, functions, etc. of the original name AND also the correct honor name. So the Batallón de Cazadores de Montaña "Pireneos" I/64 has to be: Cazadores de Montaña Battalion "Pireneos" I/64 as only this renders the name correctly in English. Pireneos can be linked to the "Pyrenees" article, Cazadores de Montaña article needs to be expanded, but only in this version you have done a neutral/correct translation of the name. noclador (talk) 09:29, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Austria, France, Germany, Spain, Poland...

Just saw a few more errors / omissions:

Austria: Only 1x of the 5x companies of the Pionierbataillon 2 is mountain-warfare trained. The 6th Mountain Brigade's battalions aren't named "Hochgebirgs-Jägerbataillon" their name is "Jägerbataillon" - see the 6th Brigade's page of the Austrian Armed Forces website. Also "der Miliz" is not part of the militia units' names.

France: Same as with the Alpini... you can't translate "Chasseurs Alpins" as it's once again a speciality of the Corps des chasseurs à pied, which is itself a subdivision of the infantry. So a literal translation would be "Alpine Hunters", which no one does. And the 4^e Régiment de Chasseurs is something different entirely... it's a unit of the Chasseurs à Cheval, which you can't really translate either, as that's a speciality of the French Cavalry. Also French regimental numerals are either followed by an ^er or ^e, which need to be up. Also the 1^er Régiment de Parachutistes d'Infanterie de Marine, 13^e Régiment de Dragons Parachutistes, and Régiment Médical have each a mountain warfare qualified company.

Poland: There are a few units missing in the Podhale Rifles Brigade section. All units of the 21st Podhale, which carry an Edelweiß as their symbol are part of the Podhale rifles and dress in the Podhale Rifles uniform. Only the 16th Engineer Battalion is not a Podhale unit

I will check Spain, Germany and Romania tomorrow. Tonight it's too late... and I just saw this: List_of_paratrooper_forces#Italy... "Moschin Hill"??? "Thundercloud"??? "Mount Cervino"??? Really? noclador (talk) 00:20, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

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